Want to know more about the different types of childcare institution that were developed? More information can be found here in this book.

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GLOSSARY

PLEASE NOTE: The landscape of insututions in the nineteenth and early twentieth cetury was a very complex one and the organisations responsible for these institutions constantly changed (or their names changed). The details given here can be a guide only and cannot be taken as hard fact without further research.

Asylums

We tend to think of asylums as places where people with mental illness are sent. In the nineteenth century the term was used much more broadly suggesting a general residential institution such as a children's home or orphanage.

Birmingham Diocesan Rescue Society

This Catholic organisation was founded in 1902 and is now known as Father Hudson's Society or Father Hudson's Care/ Still in existence today, their website is:

www.fatherhudsons.org.uk

Catholic Protection and Rescue Society (also known as the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society for orphans and homeless children)

Based in the Diocese of Salford, this was founded in 1886 by Bishop Vaughn (1872-1892). In 2010, this organisation became part of Caritas Diocese of Salford:

www.caritassalford.org.uk

Consumption

Another name for tuberculosis or TB.

Cottage Homes

The cottage homes were built by Poor Law Unions as children's homes to take children out of the workhouse.

These were established in the 19th century as small local, often rural, hospitals which achieved funding through Poor Law legislation or local philanthropists to provide care for those who otherwise could not afford it.

Crusade of Rescue

This was established in 1859 and set up its first two homes in that year - St Mary's for girls in Walthamstow and St Vincent's in Hammersmith for boys. In 1985, the Crusade of Rescue became the Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) which is still functioning today.http://www.cathchild.org.uk/

Farm Schools

Farm schools were generally used for training children in farming skills - a working farm on which the children could do their learning while themselves working. They were generally a form of industrial school or reformatory (see below).

Father Berry's Homes for Friendless Catholic Children

Under the Liverpool Catholic Children's Protection Society (founded 1881), Father John Berry set up his first home in 1892 - St Phlips on Marble Street. He then took over a home in Shaw Street called St Vincent de Paul's House. Other homes on Shaw Street followed. Due to ill-health, he had to leave Liverpool in 1897 and the Society changed its name to Homes for Catholic Friendless Youths (Father Berry's Homes) and went on to open two homes in Canada for emigrated children - St. George's Home for Boys, Ottawa and St. Vincent's Home for Girls, Montreal.

Feeble-minded

In the 19th century, this was thought of as a medical term which meant that the oerson had some form of mental impairment - perhaps a learning disability or a mental illness. The British government's Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (1904–1908), in its Report in 1908 defined the feeble-minded as:

[P]ersons who may be capable of earning a living under favourable circumstances, but are incapable from mental defect, existing from birth or from an early age: (1) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows, or (2) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence.

Fever Hospital

Fevers such as small pox and typhus were a massive problem in 19th century London, so much so that fever hispitals were estaboushed (through donations from benefactors to keep people with such infectious diseases all in one place - away from other hospitals and the workhouses where the infections may spread. Fever hospitals were also known as isolation hospitals.

Hospitals

Some early children's homes were called hospitals. They were not hospitals as we think of them but were more like what we understand as orphanages.

Hotel Dieu

Directly translated from the French, this means hostel of God. They were established by the Catholic church as hospitals for the poor.

Houses of Mercy

An institution for 'fallen women', primarily women who were pregnant and not married. They were Anglican organisations set up in the latter part of nineteenth century.

International Catholic Society for Protecting Girls (also known as the International Catholic Association of Organisations for the Protection of Girls)

This group was established in 1897 in Switzerland "to meet the needs of young girls who, because of social changes, had to live away from their own families". It is know known as the International Catholic Society for Girls.

Liverpool Catholic Reformatory Association

This was set up in 1863 to fund and manager reform schools. The first reform school it took on was the Ship Reformatory for boys in an fomer warship, the Clarence. This ran until it burnt down in 1899. In 1940, the Association became the Liverpool Catholic Training Schools Association.

Lying-in Hospital

Lyingin in hospitals were effectively the first dedicated maternity hospitals. The lying-in period was the period after childbirth when it was thought healthy for women to have a period of bed rest.

Magdalen Asylum aka Mary Magdalene Asylums

Also known as Magdalene Laundries, these Catholic institutions generally took in women who were unmarried and pregnant. The fist Magdalene Laundries opened in London in 1758 (followed by similar institutions in Ireland). Many of these laundries were run as workouses with teriible conditions in them.

Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB)

The Board was set up by the Poor Laws in 1867 for the population of London who were both ill and poor. In 1930, its role was taken over by the London County Council.

Poor Law Schools

The Poor Law Act of 1834 provided that poor children, including those in the workhouses should be given a basic education. Further Acts formalised this and increased the amount of education all children should receive. It was this 1834 Act that meant that Poor Law Unions - geographical areas - should send money on providing free education for poor children. Some of these schools were known as Poor Law School.

Receiving Home

A receiving home was a short-term home, Children would stay for a matter of days or weeks while they were assessed and a permanent placement could be found. The idea of receiving homes continued until late into the twentieth century.

Reformatories (also known as refom schools)

Reformatories (also called reform schools) were where children were sent by the courts if found guilty of a crime. They were strict places where children would receive some training in a work-based skill.

Unlike reformatories, children sent to industrial schools in the nineteenth century had not been found guilty of a crime but were thought likely to be criminals in the future (because of their circumstances or the company they kept) and so were sent to industrial schools for discipline and training. In later years, certainly by 1911, the difference between industrial and reform schools blurred with more children sent to industrial schools by the courts.

This was a term used to describe (generally large) residential institutions for orphans. Some orphanages adhered strictly to taking in only orphans, others also took in children who had lost only one parent or whose family were destitute.

A Roman Catholic ecducation and religius education instituion estacbklished by Salesian Congregation of Saint John Bosco. They were intended for boys who were in need.

Training homes / schools

This was generally used as another term for an industrial school ie. a school or home to which children were sent if it was thought that they may need extra discipline to dissuade them from getting into trouble in the future.

Training Ships

A novel take on the industrial school was the industrial training ship. Children would be sent to the ships - there were several in 1901 - in the same way they would be sent to an industrial school. They would receive training appropriate for them to become a sailor.

Truant School

Truant schools were, in effect, a form of short-term industrial school. Whereas children were likely to be sent to industrial schools for a number of years, if not the remainder of their childhoods, children who were truanting could be sent for a lesser time to a truant school. In the early twentieth century, the term disappeared and the function merged with that of industrial schools.

When Poor Law Unions were building separate residential accommodation for children, distinct from the workhouse, they were often called workhouse schools or Poor Law Schools. Generally, at the beginning of the twentieth century, these workhouse schools were either replaced or renamed as cottage homes or children's homes.

Working boys' and girls' homes

The idea behind homes for working children is that they would be a stepping stone between a children's home or orphanage and independent living. Older children would go into the working children's home and be helped into a job from which they would pay the home a proportion of their earnings for their board and lodging The idea continued until the 1970s.

Institutions of 1911

Sanatoria, Catholic homes, poor law schools, asylums etc.

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______________________________

PLEASE NOTE: The landscape of insututions in the nineteenth and early twentieth cetury was a very complex one and the organisations responsible for these institutions constantly changed (or their names changed). The details given here can be a guide only and cannot be taken as hard fact without further research.

Bethlehem Asylum, St George’s Fields, Southwark (also known as Bethlem Royal Hospital, St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam). Founded 1247 as an institution for poor people, developed into an institution for insane people and finally a psychiatric asylum. (Moved to West Wickham in 1930)

French Hospital, Servants of the Sacred Heart, Shaftesbury Avenue, London (for Huguenot descendants - members of the French Protestant Church, who left France in the 17th and 18th centuries to escape persecution) Founded 1867

Belmont Lunatic Asylum. Founded in 1853 on Brighton Road, Sutton as an orphanage and poor law school for children Greenwich, Camberwell and Woolwich. It closed as an orphanage in 1902 and later became a psychiatric hsopital which closed in the 1980s.